How long until the Lord of the Flies kicks in?

Five 10-year old boys, a 5-year old girl, 4 hours and it’s a good thing we didn’t pass out the machetes.

Are we born with the survival instinct? Is it really kill or be killed? Didn’t that end with the industrial revolution? Maybe we skipped a revolution or two?

We didn’t have any of these:

Jungle

Island

Hunger

Desperation

Well, maybe a bit of #4. But it’s all relative, right? So we shouldn’t resort to violence, hate, ganging up and kicking them while they’re down when we don’t have such harsh circumstances. The “desperation” is relative. It might be consoled with a bag of dried mango (keeping the jungle theme going, after all). Or a pat on the shoulder. Or a reassuring word from a sage parent.

“Which is better–to have laws and agree, or to hunt and kill?”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

Hey, it was just a light-hearted afternoon, right? A game of basketball, swinging on the swings and home to quesadillas. No harm, no foul.

Or was it so innocent? What do we not know? Do we need to know what we don’t know? Does that harm us what we don’t know? Can we help prevent a path by guiding the early steps?

Hey, nothing to see here. Pass the quesadillas, will you? Slow down that imagination, it might be dangerous.

P.S. I’m filing this under travel. We didn’t go to a deserted island or a jungle, but we went somewhere today–and it was a little scary.